[22] Generally distributed under three heads: 1. Credis in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, etc.? Resp. Credo. 2. Credis et in Jesum Christum, etc.? Resp. Credo. 3. Credis et in Spiritum Sanctum, etc.? Resp. Credo. See the interrogative Creeds in Martene, De antiquis ecclesiæ ritibus, 1. I. c. 1, and in Heurtley, l.c. pp. 103-116.
[23] Hieronymus, Ep. 61, ad Pammach.: 'Symbolum fidei et spei nostræ, quod ab apostolis traditum, non scribitur in charta et atramento, sed in tabulis cordis carnalibus.' Augustine, Serm. ccxii, 2: 'Audiendo symbolum discitur, nec in tabulis vel in aliqua materia, sed in corde scribitur.'
[24] On the Disciplina arcani comp. my Church History, I. 384 sq., and Semisch, On the Ap. Creed, p. 17, who maintains, with others, that the Apostles' Creed existed in full as a part of the Secret Discipline long before it was committed to writing.
[25] See these Nicene and post-Nicene Creeds in Hahn, l.c. pp. 3 sqq., and in Heurtley, l.c. 43 sqq. Augustine (and pseudo-Augustine) gives eight expositions of the Symbol, and mentions, besides, single articles in eighteen passages of his works. See Caspari, l.c. II. 264 sq. He follows in the main the (Ambrosian) form of the Church of Milan, which agrees substantially with the Roman. Twice he takes the North African Symbol of Carthage for a basis, which has additions in the first article, and puts the article on the Church to the close (vitam æternam per sanctam ecclesiam). We have also, from the Nicene and post-Nicene age, several commentaries on the Creed by Cyril of Jerusalem, Rufinus, Ambrose, and Augustine. They do not give the several articles continuously, but it is easy to collect and to reconstruct them from the comments in which they are expounded. Cyril expounds the Eastern Creed, the others the Western. Rufinus takes that of the Church of Aquileja, of which he was presbyter, as the basis, but notes incidentally the discrepancy between this Creed and that of the Church of Rome, so that we obtain from him the text of the Roman Creed as well. He mentions earlier expositions of the Creed, which were lost (In Symb. § 1).
[26] See Caspari, Vol. III. pp. 28-161.
[27] The last clause occurs in the Greek text of Marcellus and in the baptismal creed of Antioch (kai eis hamartion aphein kai eis nekron anastasin kai eis zoen aionion). See Caspari, Vol. I. pp. 83 sqq.
[28] Heurtley says (l.c. p. 126): 'In the course of the seventh century the Creed seems to have been approaching more and more nearly, and more and more generally, to conformity with the formula now in use; and before its close, instances occur of creeds virtually identical with that formula. The earliest creed, however, which I have met with actually and in all respects identical with it, that of Pirminius, does not occur till the eighth century; and even towards the close of the eighth, A.D. 785, there is one remarkable example of a creed, then in use, which retains much of the incompleteness of the formula of earlier times, the Creed of Etherius Uxamensis.' The oldest known copies of our present textus receptus are found in manuscripts of works which can not be traced beyond the eighth or ninth century, viz., in a 'Psalterium Græcum Gregorii Magni,' preserved in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and first published by Abp. Usher, 1647 (also by Heurtley, l.c. p. 82), and another in the 'Libellus Pirminii [who died 758] de singulis libris canonicis scarapsus' (=collectus), published by Mabillon (Analecta, Tom. IV. p. 575). The first contains the Creed in Latin and Greek (both, however, in Roman letters), arranged in two parallel columns; the second gives first the legend of the Creed with the twelve articles assigned to the twelve apostles, and then the Latin Creed as used in the baptismal service. See Heurtley, p. 71.
[29] The same view of the origin of the Apostles' Creed is held by the latest writers on the subject, as Hahn, Heurtley, Caspari, Zöckler, Semisch. Zöckler says (l.c. p. 18): 'Das Apostolicum ist hinsichtlich seiner jetzigen Form sowohl nachapostolisch, als selbst nachaugustinisch, aber hinsichtlich seines Inhalts ist es nicht nur voraugustinisch, sondern ganz und gar apostolisch--in diesen einfachen Satz lässt die Summe der einschlägigen kritisch patristischen Forschungsergebnisse sich kurzerhand zusammendrängen. Und die Wahrheit dieses Satzes, soweit er die Apostolicität des Inhalts behauptet, lässt sich bezüglich jedes einzelnen Gliedes oder Sätzchens, die am spätesten hinzugekommenen nicht ausgenommen, mit gleicher Sicherheit erhärten.' Semisch traces the several articles, separately considered, up to the third and second centuries, and the substance to the first. Fr. Spanheim and Calvin did the same. Calvin says: 'Neque mihi dubium est, quin a prima statim ecclesiæ origine, adeoque ab ipso Apostolorum seculo instar publicæ et omnium calculis receptæ confessionis obtinuerit' (Inst. lib. II. c. 16, § 18). The most elaborate argument for the early origin is given by Caspari, who derives the Creed from Asia Minor in the beginning of the second century (Vol. III. pp. 1-161).
[30] The discussion of the Apostles' Creed entered a stage of great warmth after Dr. Schaff's death, 1893. The work by Kattenbusch, the most extensive and exhaustive on the subject, was followed by treatments from the pens of Harnack, Cremer, Zahn, Loofs, Kunze, and others in Germany, Burn, and Badcock, 1930, in England and McGiffert in the United States. The early Roman baptismal formula is carried by Harnack and Mirbt to 150 or earlier, and by Kattenbusch and Zahn to 120 or earlier. A. Seeberg found the clauses in the New Testament writings and held that a creedal formula was in use in Apostolic times. McGiffert, who was followed by Krüger, proposed the theory that the formula was a reply to the heresies of Marcion about 160. Badcock opposes the view of Kattenbusch, Harnack, and Burn on the origin of the Apostles' Creed, relying in part upon Irenaeus's recently found treatise, "The teaching of the Apostles." The renewed study of the Apostles' Creed was followed by a new study of the doctrine of the Virgin birth of Christ in view of the omission of the clause "conceived by the Holy Ghost" in the forms of the Rule of Faith known to us and the statement of the early Roman baptismal formula, "born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary." The most recent treatise on the Virgin birth is by Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ, N. Y., 1930.--Ed.
[31] The Creed of Aquileja has, after Patrem omnipotentem, the addition: 'invisibilem et impassibilem,' in opposition to Sabellianism and Patripassianism. The Oriental creeds insert one before God. Marcellus omits Father, and reads eis theon pantokratora.
[32] 'Creatorem coeli et terræ' appears in the Apostles' Creed from the close of the seventh century, but was extant long before in ante-Nicene rules of faith (Irenæus, Adv. hoer. I. c. 10, 1; Tertullian, De vel. virg. c. l, 'mundi conditorem;' De proescr. hæret. c. 13), in the Nicene Creed (poieten ouranou kai ges, k.t.l.), and all other Eastern creeds, in opposition to the Gnostic schools, which made a distinction between the true God and the Maker of the world (the Demiurge).
[33] 'Qui natus est de Spiritu Sancto ex (or et) Maria virgine.'
[34] 'Qui CONCEPTUS est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria virgine.' The distinction between conception and birth first appears in the Sermones de Tempore, falsely attributed to Augustine.
[35] 'Passus,' perhaps from the Nicene Creed (pathonta, which there implies the crucifixion). In some forms 'crucifixus,' in others 'mortuus' is omitted.
[36] From the Aquilejan Creed: 'Descendit ad inferna,' or, as the Athanasian Creed has it, 'ad inferos,' to the inhabitants of the spirit-world. Some Eastern (Arian) creeds: katebe eis ton haden (also eis ta katachthonia, or eis ta katotata). Augustine says (Ep. 99, al. 164, § 3) that unbelievers only deny 'fuisse apud inferos Christum.' Venantius Fortunatus, A.D. 570, who had Rufinus before him, inserted the clause in his creed. Rufinus himself, however, misunderstood it by making it to mean the same as buried (§ 18: 'vis verbi eadem videtur esse in eo quod sepultus dicitur').
[37] The additions 'Dei' and 'omnipotentis,' made to conform to article first, are traced to the Spanish version of the Creed as given by Etherius Uxamensis (bishop of Osma), A.D. 785, but occur already in earlier Gallican creeds. See Heurtley, pp. 60, 67.
[38] 'Credo,' in common use from the time of Petrus Chrysologus, d. 450. But And, without the repetition of the verb, is no doubt the primitive form, as it grew immediately out of the baptismal formula, and gives clearer and closer expression to the doctrine of the Trinity.
[39] 'Catholicam' (universal), in accordance with the Nicene Creed, and older Oriental forms, was received into the Latin Creed before the close of the fourth century (comp. Augustine: De Fide et Symbolo, c. 10). The term catholic, as applied to the Church, occurs first in the Epistles of Ignatius (Ad Smyrnæos, cap. 8: hosper hopou an e Christos Iesous, ekei he katholike ekklesia and in the Martyrium Polycarpi (inscription, and cap. 8: hapases tes kata ten oikoumenen katholikes ekklesias, comp. c. 19, where Christ is called poimen tes kata oikoumenen katholikes ekklesias.
[40] The article 'Commumionem sanctorum,' unknown to Augustine (Enchir. c. 64, and Serm. 213), appears first in the 115th and 118th Sermons De Tempore, falsely attributed to him. It is not found in any of the Greek or earlier Latin creeds. See the note of Pearson On the Creed, Art. IX. sub 'The Communion of Saints' (p. 525, ed. Dobson). Heurtley, p. 146, brings it down to the close of the eighth century, since it is wanting in the Creed of Etherius, 785. The oldest commentators understood it of the communion with the saints in heaven, but afterwards it assumed a wider meaning: the fellowship of all true believers, living and departed.
[41] The Latin reads carnis, the Greek sarkos, flesh; the Aquilejan form hujus carnis, of this flesh (which is still more realistic, and almost materialistic), 'ut possit caro vel pudica coronari, vel impudica puniri' (Rufinus, § 43). It should be stated, however, that there are two other forms of the Aquilejan Creed given by Walch (xxxiv. and xxxv.) and by Heurtley (pp. 30-32), which differ from the one of Rufinus, and are nearer the Roman form.
[42] Some North African forms (of Carthage and Hippo Regius) put the article of the Church at the close, in this way: 'vitam eternam per sanctam ecclesiam.' Others: carnis resurrectionem in vitam æternam. The Greek Creed of Marcellus, which otherwise agrees with the old Roman form, ends with zoen aionion.
[43] The old Roman form has only eleven articles, unless art. 6 be divided into two; while the received text has sixteen articles, if 'Maker of heaven and earth,' 'He descended into Hades,' 'the communion of saints,' and 'the life everlasting,' are counted separately.
[44] Pars prima, cap. 1, qu. 2 (Libri Symbolici Eccl. Cath., ed. Streitwolf and Klener, Tom. I. p. 111): 'Quæ igitur primum Christiani homines tenere debent, illa sunt, quæ fidei duces, doctoresque sancti Apostoli, divino Spiritu afflati, duodecim Symboli articulis distinxerunt. Nam, cum mandatum a Domino accepissent, ut pro ipso legatione fungentes, in universum mundum proficiscerentur, atque omni creaturæ Evangelium prædicarent: Christianæ fidei formulam componendam censuerunt, ut scilicet id omnes sentirent ac dicerent, neque ulla essent inter eos schismata,' etc. Ibid. qu. 3: 'Hanc autem Christianæ fidei et spei professionem a se compositam Apostoli Symbolum appellarunt; sive quia ex variis sententiis, quas singuli in commune contulerunt, conflata est; sive quia ea veluti nota, et tessera quandam uterentur, qua desertores et subintroductos falsos fratres, qui Evangelium adulterabant, ab iis, qui veræ Christi militiæ sacramento se obligarent, facile possent internoscere.'
[45] In his Catechism, Calvin says that the formula of the common Christian faith is called symbolum apostolorum, quod vel ab ore apostolorum excepta fuerit, vel ex eorum scriptis fideliter collecta.
[46] Dr. Nevin (l.c. p. 107), who otherwise puts the highest estimate on the Creed. See the comparative tables on the gradual growth of the Creed in the second volume of this work.